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Sunday, March 2, 2014

Current Austin Medical Clinic Construction Count

While the rest of the country gets its ballots out for tonight's Academy Awards, we here at Edge of the City are keeping count on the number of new medical clinics opening on our main shopping strip of Austin St. Joy.

Here's the updated Medical Clinic Construction list for those of you keeping count:

1) Former combined site of Pasta Del Giorno/Second Time Around
2) Brandon Cinemas theater, soon to be shut down and converted
3) Building under construction between 71st Road and 72nd Ave., next to Bareburger restaurant

We must all patronize our new clinics by coming down with dismaying illnesses. Happy Day.

80 comments:

Getting a little ridiculous now. Two is bad enough; three is beyond ridiculous and the oversaturation point and there's no way they'll all last. It also sucks that we're losing the smaller movie theater as it served a very useful purpose.

and if you get sick where are you going to go? ER and wait for hours?i've gone to forest hills urgent care and come out within 30 minutes when i was sick. same when my son was sick one time and his regular doctor was away for a conference

where are you going to go? how about a doctor's office? one of the MANY doctor offices in forest hills. there is definitely no shortage of doctor offices in forest hills. these mills are just going to bring in the newly insured who have convenient access to them because of the subway/bus stops along QB.

I'm wondering what sparked so many clinics wanting to open here in Forest Hills? Are these such lucrative businesses? Does this have anything to do with obamacare? I know urgent care clinics are popping up all over the city, but to have three all on Austin St. must have something to do with our demographics? I know we have one of the largest elderly population in Queens, could that be it?

I think you're right. It's depressing that we don't seem to have enough young, hippier people to support good restaurants. Sometimes I see so many little old ladies on my block I think of that scene in "The Producers" where you see rows of them dancing with their walkers.

Wow, I thought things were looking up in Forest Hills, maybe not. Three of those urgent care centers...and the one that already opened recently. What I want to know is why on Austin Street!? There are plenty of empty storefront on Queens Blvd. So instead of more shops or restaurants, we get urgent care centers to stroll by. So depressing. Now what we need is an urgent depression care center.

Can't we petition against this? I remember when a space in the neighborhood was going to become another liquor store there was a petition against it and it was successful. Seems like most locals do not want this business.

If the permits are granted and they are committed to build out these 3 centers, let's hope they have not done their demographics homework and due to competition 2 of the 3 go out of business, leaving one. And that, is one too many on Austin. Why not a side street and leave the 'main drag' for nice shops and/or nice restaurants?

Here's a blast from the past: there was once a strip club that opened on or around Austin St., it was called runway 69 or something similar. The residents of our community did all they could to have it shut down, and succeeded in doing so! But again, it was a strip club....I'm just not so certain the majority of residents now living in our neighborhood are against these clinics, especially the elderly and those with kids. I'm all in though if anyone wants to organize a petition or rally against having an over abundance of these urgent care centers.

Think of all the medical waste that will produced by these places, dumped close to where people shop and eat. Disgusting. In other neighborhoods, these centers are tucked away at the end of a major street, not at its heart! Jamaica Avenue is starting to look better than Austin.

The rents are too high. That's why there are so many mediocre places - the owners have deep pockets, not because the food is any good. Three medical clinics may actually be good for the area - here's hoping the doctors are picky eaters and they open up better restaurants just for them!

I much rather have this around than another bank, cell phone store, or yogurt joint. This could actually be used by a majority of people. I'm not fond of THREE locations, but again, this is more useful than the original awful Italian restaurant. No one petitioned to get the restaurant out, yet we going to petition something we may actually use? Go the ER once in your life and you'll learn why these locations may actually prove to be beneficial. Besides, with the abundance of bars opening up, we'll be sure to get a lot more people braking their faces on the concrete :)

Having three urgent care centers so close to each other is like having three pawn shops in the same area. Yes, people can use them but what kind of message that does send to people who might want to move here? Astoria, the Williamsburg of Queens, has urgent care centers for its drunk patrons but they are spread out, not the featured attraction on its main shopping areas.

True. But "hipsters" in Astoria, Williamsburg, etc. will love the design of these urgent care centers. They're not your mom and pop clinics. They're modern styled boutiques. Some in the city have exposed brick and white modern details (chairs, furniture). In my opinion, its reminiscent of shops in Soho. Check out their website. http://www.citymd.com/

"Hipsters" is just code word for young, whites who may not dress or have the same facial hair as you, so you hate them just like you would hate blacks or hispanics for their differences. #racistcodewords

I would complain to the Chamber of Commerce, or if a petition fails, there is always market forces. They may have overestimated how many elderly and sick people we have, unless we get a huge influx of people outside of this area, like Jamaica.

I don't understand, we live in a free market economy not Russia or China. People can freely invest in a property or a legal business. What is the Chamber of Commerce going to do, order a stay on new medical clinics? The law of supply and demand always balances everything out. Pasta di Giorno closed because it had no demand.

Personally speaking, I'd rather have 3 medical clinics in the area rather than 3 boring and mediocre restaurants like Twist and Smashed, Flying Pig or Pasta di Giorno.

That's a good point. We don't need more mediocre restaurants. There's no restaurants on Austin street proper I can say is my go to restaurant for guaranteed food enjoyment. Well, maybe just 5 burros but that's it.

I'm in the mindset that one of these locations will survive long-term. It's such a small radius, I don't foresee all 3 locations being able to sustain business. Short-term, it's definitely a bummer, but hopefully there's light at the end of the tunnel.

It hasn't gone un-noticed Kevin. It's simply become the expectation for where these facilities "should" open in our neighborhood. This issue now is that they're creeping into the main shopping area of Austin Street.

I do believe it's a temporary situation which will rectify itself over time. It would be surprising if our neighborhood could support so many of these facilities in such a tight radius.

I believe that three new urgent care centers are too many. If you agree, you should complain with the local community board. Also, does anyone know what's up with the little personalized monogram shop on Austin Street near Ascan? I have not once seen the shop open or anyone inside it.

Wow, that is depressing news for the neighborhood. I understand the need for medical centers but do they need to be on Austin Street ? This reverses the positive trend of 2013 of FoHi becoming a trendy place to live. Medical Centers will not bring more hip people in the area in fact it will attract the exact opposite.

It's only garbage if replacements of the restaurant and small business scene are able to be viable with sound business plans. The reasons why some of those business have closed is due more importantly to them being inefficient/ineffective business with poor business plans.

This is true, but we do have an abundance of Americanized-style Chinese take out's all around the neighborhood. Although the Asian population in FH is growing at a very fast rate, they tend to eat at authentic restaurants primarily in Flushing. I'm hoping that a high quality, authentic style Chinese restaurant eventually opens here, but I doubt that will happen anytime soon due to the high rents in our neighborhood. At least there is nearby Flushing to satisfy cravings for a high quality, low cost, authentic meal!

The rents can be cheaper in other areas due to the fact that incomes can be realized by the volume of rentals/condos/offices above the ground level. That's why Austin St got rezoned to allow higher building (last year I want to say). The low-rises are forcing landlords to charge higher prices since there is only one lease for most of Austin Street.

Guaranteed will be the gripes of some when something more that 2-5 floors comes up over Restaurant Row.

Let's be realistic. A landlord of a multi-story building isn't going to pass on charging the same, or close to the same rent for ground-floor retail space as a landlord of a single-story retail space next-door simply because he also can make money on the floors above the ground floor.

Assuming that's true--the question is whether the landlord of a multi-story building is going to charge less for his ground-floor space simply because he doesn't need to charge as much rent. He knows the guy next door is charging "x"--and he's gonna charge "x" minus, leaving money on on the table when he can get it? And in any event, what makes anyone think that it's necessary for the owner of a 1-story building to charge more rent? Taxes, upkeep and other expenses have got to be higher on a multi-story building. And for all we know, any particular one-story building is mortgage-free, while the multi-story building right next door has a major mortgage, driving expenses higher. The one-story building may be owned by someone very wealthy, with no kids and no debts. The larger building might be owned by a group of people, each with far less wealth than the guy who owns the one-story building, each of whom has 2-3 kids to put through college, and one or two of whom have child support payments to make. Now who has t charge more rent?